On Newsweek’s new video podcast "The 1600," constitutional scholar and lifelong conservative Justin Stapley warns that the MAGA movement’s problems run far deeper than any single election cycle.
Stapley, host of The Conservative Underground podcast, argues that the "GOP’s outward strength under President Donald Trump masks a party increasingly defined by internal division, ideological drift, and the growing influence of populism and online-driven extremism," Newsweek says.
"Speaking with Newsweek's Carlo Versano, Stapley warns that Trump’s personal dominance has masked the extent to which traditional conservatism has been sidelined, leaving Republicans unprepared for what comes after Trump," they write.
In response to Versano saying "Republicans got smoked" in the November elections, Stapley, who is also the state director of the Utah Reagan Caucus, says the problem runs deeper than just one election cycle.
"What we’ve discovered is that the last 10 years haven’t been a direct ideological shift so much as a propaganda coup," he says.
"People will walk up with a swagger, red MAGA hat, angry look, and say, 'Oh, we've got a zombie Reaganite over here.' And then everyone else will stop and say, 'Wait, I thought we liked Reagan.' There’s confusion among ordinary Republicans," he adds.
Those "ordinary Republicans," he explains, are not part of the MAGA movement and are still steeped in Reaganism.
"Ordinary Republicans still embrace Reaganism and traditional conservatism because they understand the country is built on deep philosophical roots," he says. If people want to abandon all that because it's 'holding us back,' that’s not what many Republicans signed up for."
Stapley is no Trump fan, saying, that while we've had some bad presidents before, "he’s worse because we’ve gutted the checks and balances that used to exist."
"Congress has become almost an empty branch of government — even though it was meant to be the 'first among equals.' The modern presidency has grown and grown. Congress has become the president’s foot soldiers," he says.
Stapley also explains that there is a crack in the MAGA base because Trump "can't please everyone," and he sees MAGA morphing into something entirely different that what it is currently.
"We may soon see 'America First' meaning something very different from MAGA," he says.
"Trump still holds the MAGA brand, but you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Matt Walsh saying 'I’m America First, and I’m America Only.'"
Without Trump on the ballot in 2028, Stapley says Republicans have work to do.
"Republicans need to figure out their identity. People say they’ve remade themselves into a blue-collar populist party with a bigger coalition. But that coalition doesn’t show up without Trump," he says.
They also need to realize the truth about Trump.
"Even with Trump, we’ve overestimated his strength. He’s run in three consecutive presidential elections and never broken 50 percent," he says. "He has a 47 percent ceiling unless he’s running against a candidate who’s mentally not there or one who didn’t go through a Democratic selection process."